Another US air traffic controller has been suspended, this time for watching a film when he was supposed to be monitoring aircraft, the embattled Federal Aviation Administration said.

Misery's formula is depressingly straightforward. "A loves B, B doesn't love A," observes washed-up flying ace Freddie Page. Shallow, selfish, drunken, not even particularly good looking, Page's analysis of the situation is accurate if prosaic.

Inglourious Basterds ticks all the boxes for a film by Quentin Tarantino. Visceral violence, an inspired soundtrack, genre bent all out of shape, reams of crackling dialogue and a veritable love letter to Sergio Leone, The Dirty Dozen and the films of pre-war Germany? Check. But an award-winning performance? Now that's unusual. Samuel L Jackson as the Bible-spouting hitman in Pulp Fiction, and Robert Forster as the ageing bail bondsman in Jackie Brown, both received Best Supporting Actor nominations at the Oscars. But in general, Tarantino films don't receive their plaudits for their performances.

Here's some early rain on the parade of America's bright new dawn.

US best-selling author Michael Crichton, who wrote such novels as "The Andromeda Strain" and "Jurassic Park," and created the popular TV drama "ER," has died at 66, his family said today.

When the singer and musician Isaac Hayes met MGM executives in 1970, the conversation turned to the Ernest Tidyman novel Shaft, to which the studio had just acquired the film rights. Hayes thought he might be up for the lead role as the black private detective John Shaft, as the studio seemed keen to cash in on the emerging blaxploitation genre.

Homage to a charming and versatile beast